PLUR: P(eace), L(ove), U(nity), R(espect)

The "four pillars" of the "house" or "rave" community are PEACE, LOVE, UNITY,
and RESPECT. I'd always heard peace/love/unity around here (here being
the East Coast) but it wasn't until I came in contact with Brian from San
Francisco that I heard the fourth one, RESPECT.

And then suddenly it all came clear to me. You can't have peace, love, and
unity without respect. And even more importantly, each individual is
responsible for finding and maintaining and giving peace, love, unity, and
respect. It isn't just handed to you. It doesn't just magically appear
because you've arrived at a rave or taken some acid or ecstacy. You have to
find it and generate it for yourself, and then GIVE IT AWAY to anyone and
everyone to sort of "jump start" them into generating it. The "giving away"
of it is what makes up, in my mind, the "vibe."

PEACE

Peace is what you use to chill out when the sound system blows and the music
stops for ten minutes. It's what you use when some idiot keeps bumping in to
you while dancing. It's sort of like serenity and being calm. Shit happens,
and you deal with it.

LOVE

Love is an unconditional appreciation of something or someone. It combines
with peace to allow you to think things like "Frankie Bones isn't a bad guy,
in spite of his flapping mouth." The peace gives you the chill factor so you
can get to the unconditional love.

UNITY

Once you have peace and love, unity follows in that you can appreciate other
people and other things, and this appreciation allows you to work together
with them, or spend time together with them, and otherwise support them, even
if you don't always agree with them. A sense of something "bigger" than just
yourself and your own pleasure is part of unity -- in the case of us on the
list the "bigger" thing is an interest in the odd social phenomena known as
"raving." Unity helps me to do things like throw good parties for the ne-raves
list, even though there *are* people who are on the list and who might come to
these parties who I'd rather not have anything to do with . . . it is in the
spirit of greater unity that I chill with these feelings (peace again) and
welcome everyone into my home so they can be together and have fun.

RESPECT

This, to me, is the key that is often missing in our scene. People get too
much into flamage (and I admit, I've been guilty of this). People are more
worried about being DISrespected by others, rather than concentrating on
generating and giving respect. This is the most difficult one for me to
explain, because I've had the least amount of time to think about it . . . .
Respect includes things like NOT graffiting on walls at raves, picking up your
trash, and giving whatever you can as a donation when the hat is passed at a
free event. It also includes seperating yourself from that what you don't
like, while allowing it to continue uninterrupted because people other than
yourself are getting enjoyment from it (for example, take my feelings toward
the majority of breakbeat: I really don't like it, so when it is played I go
chill with some friends and wait until the set is over . . . I used to whine
and complain, but then it sunk in to me that OTHER people were getting
something from it, and by trying to supress their enjoyment I was showing
extreme disrespect for them.)